Guitar Center
commissioned me to create a site specific sculptural facade for their
new flagship store on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood. The
design would need knit together the existing store (at left in the image
above), a new building which had already broken ground and another existing
building (shown at right) which was then vacant. The three combined building
would become a single new store.

The project
came with a number of specialized requirements, e.g., the building was
to have no windows or skylights to deter burglary.

The "supergraphic"
signage on the existing building was large, but hard to see as customers
approached along cluttered Sunset Boulevard. Accordingly, making signage
more readable from a distant perspective became part of the project design
requirement.

The
store houses "Rock Walk", a rock history display in the entry
vestibule including handprints of famous musicians set in cement. Part of
the project requirement for the proposed Art in Public Places facade was
to expand "Rock Walk" onto the city sidewalk. This requirement
lead me to create a trellis against the building. The trellis then became
a guitar neck which casts shadows in the shape of piano keys. I designed
the store entry as an updated interpretation of a "golden age of Hollywood"
theater marquee. The marquee became a drum head glazed with colored glass,
bathing the visitor in theatrical-style lighting as they entered and exited
the store.

The guitar
sculpture provided a spatial connection between the three buildings and
energized the blank facade with its dynamic shadows. I specified brightly
colored glass "Rockwalk" sign letters along the face of the
trellis, so that each letterform would cast a brightly colored shadow
during the day and become a jewel-like illuminated sign at night.